In the old days when I did a lot of cycling (the 70's and 80's) the bikes had shift levers on the down tube of the bike, the tube that angles from the headset down to the crank area. The shift levers wound be conveniently (we thought) mounted there, and a quick adjustment on the right or left lever would shift the front or rear derailluer. Then along came shifters on the end of the handlebar, the so called plug end shifters. Then something really great came out, and that was shifters in which the shift levers were built into the brake hood, so you can shift the gears without moving your hands from brake hood. The first combination brake lever and shift lever seems to have been patented by Joel Evett in 1978. It sure would be fun to know if he licensed his patent to one of the big bike companies.
TA actually made a prototype integrated shifter /lever back in the 50s, but it was discarded as being unnessesary, ie they thought the current system was good enough.
Posted by: James | September 15, 2006 at 09:40 PM